So despite the fact that I am a devout City of Heroes person on this site, I have something of a minority opinion in that I have never liked the original login music for the game. No, really. I think the replacement tune used for when the game went free-to-play sounds much better, and I will die on […]

If someone was keeping track of MMORPG gaming achievements that encompassed all of your online career, would you have earned that special award that said that you — yes you — had tried and played a 2-D MMO at some point in your life? There aren’t a lot of them out there, but it’s not […]

If you’ve been playing an MMORPG for long enough, you have hit that point before. Not the point wherein there is truly nothing to do in the game, but the point wherein you have accomplished all your goals, earned all your rewards, cleared everything you want. And so then you sit there, log into the game, […]

I recently went live for about an hour playing Albion Online on Steam, and honestly, it was one of those chill but satisfying sessions.

If you’ve never played Albion Online, it’s a sandbox MMORPG where you gather, craft, trade, and fight, all in a player-driven economy. I spent most of the stream doing what I normally do: gathering resources and stacking up silver. It’s relaxing in its own way. There’s something oddly satisfying about chopping trees, mining ore, and watching your inventory fill up.

But the highlight of the stream? I finally bought a horse.

Yep. I dropped 25,000 silver on it. In Albion Online, silver is the main in-game currency, so that was a pretty big purchase for me at this stage. Mounts make traveling way faster and safer, especially when you’re hauling resources. Still, spending that much at once definitely made me pause for a second. Was it worth it? So far... I think so. The speed boost alone feels like a game-changer.

While grinding, I also had a video playing in the background. I started watching Asmongold reacting to a video about Highguard and why it failed. It got me thinking. Highguard apparently launched with just one main game mode, similar to how PUBG focused heavily on battle royale. The difference is, PUBG’s gameplay loop was compelling enough to keep players coming back. From what I’ve seen and heard, Highguard didn’t quite hit that mark.

In my opinion, if you’re going to launch with just one game mode, it needs to be incredibly polished and tested with the public. Gamers today have tons of options. If something doesn’t immediately grab them, they move on fast.

Overall, the stream was a mix of chill grinding, a big in-game purchase, and some interesting thoughts about game design and why some titles succeed while others struggle. Not bad for an hour in Albion Online.

🙏 Support the grind:

• Streamlabs: https://streamlabs.com/kabalyero/tip
• StreamElements: https://streamelements.com/kabalyero/tip
• Ko‑fi: https://ko-fi.com/kabalyero

I just spent almost an hour playing Albion Online, and honestly, it was one of those calm, grind-heavy sessions.

Nothing dramatic happened. No massive PvP fights. No crazy loot drops. Just pure, simple gathering.

And you know what? I actually enjoy that.

Most of my gathering skills are now at Journeyman level. That felt good to see. The only tools lagging behind are the skinning knife and the sickle — they’re still playing catch-up. I also picked up some mastery levels in leather and mercenary gear. I can’t remember the exact system message, but progress is progress!

The biggest surprise of the stream?

Someone asked a question in chat.

That might not sound like a big deal, but I usually stream to zero viewers. So seeing someone type something was unexpected — and honestly pretty cool.

That small interaction made the grind feel less solo.

If you’re into chill MMORPG sessions where the goal is simple progress and relaxing gameplay, that’s pretty much what this stream was about.

Also… if you’d like to help keep the energy up, $10 goes a long way toward coffee. And coffee definitely powers these grind sessions.

Thanks for reading — and maybe I’ll see you in the next stream. 😊

A Deck Stacked With Terror

HIGH Easy to pick up and play.

LOW A lack of overall depth.

WTF Scoops the Clown.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone. Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.

The Spirit Lift is a roguelike deckbuilder that takes inspiration from haunted houses and creature feature films of the early ’80s and ’90s. A group of high school seniors get separated from their group on a field trip to a spooky hotel and get sucked into The Spirit Lift, where they must fight through 13 floors of terror in order to get back home.

Once a run begins, players take their group of teens through the cursed hotel floors in order to make it to the Penthouse and defeat the evil creature there. Each floor is different, with the theme depending on the boss that will be found at the end of the section. Every door along the way might hide cards or gear to help with the run, gold to buy cards from a shady wolf lurking around, or enemies trying their best to gobble the players up.

In combat, cards are played each turn to defeat enemies. Enemies telegraph what they will do when the player ends their turn, so using that information to plan out moves before enemies act is crucial. Unlike others in the genre, I have yet to find a card in Spirit Lift that actually serves as “defense” — there are no shields and no blocking. Options seem limited to attacking or debuffing enemies, which leads to a quick gameplay loop as it’s all-offense, all the time. That said, this speed is helpful in avoiding the maximum of 13 turns per battle — I haven’t found out what happens if a player uses up all of those turns, but I can’t imagine it’s good. Whether players win or lose a run, there will be points awarded that they can use for things like more starting health or starting with more gold on future runs.

There’s not much to the formula beyond what I’ve just described, so there’s not much depth in The Spirit Lift. There’s not much enemy variety, either. In my runs I’ve seen basic versions of bad guys, slightly healthier versions, and versions that do more status effects. There are some one-off enemies that introduce a new gimmick, but the well of new ideas seems to dry up fast.

What really kills the Spirit Lift, though, is the grind. It’s not the worst I’ve seen since each run is fairly short, maybe taking an hour to hit the final boss of the run, but the lack of variety is felt quickly.

On the plus side, players will eventually unlock five additional characters past the starting three after a few runs. Some are better with straight attacks, while others are better at buffing or damage-over-time, but they all tend to play fairly similar to each other. This means that after only a little while, The Spirit Lift has shown its entire hand.

That could be disappointing for players who love to dig deep into an experience like this, but despite how shallow it seems, I find that the spooky haunted house vibe is charming, it’s easy to grasp some of the powerful combinations quickly, and learning the full array of monsters allows players to quickly strategize each encounter.

The Spirit Lift won’t be a game for everyone, but there’s joy to be found for players who might like a smaller bite.

For me, The Spirit Lift gets 7.5 loops of elevator music out of 10.

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Disclosures: This game is developed and published by prettysmart games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Steam. Approximately 8 hours of play were spent playing the game, and multiple runs of the game were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not currently rated by the ESRB. However, it’s safe to say that it has fantasy violence as players use cards that represent items like guns, baseball bats, and tennis rackets to attack horror monsters. No blood, no foul language, just creepy atmosphere.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles can not be altered and/or resized. There are no audio cues needed to play. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control diagram. Movement is controlled by pressing WASD on the keyboard, or by using the mouse to click on the arrows on screen. Mouse is used to control everything else (card selection, selecting options in events, etc),

The post The Spirit Lift Video Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

There are some very fun abilities to use in Warframe, but one of my favorite is Mesa’s fourth ability, Peacemaker. In a game full to the brim with guns, a Warframe has an ability that is just “draw more guns.” And it’s actually very useful, arguably up there with any other games the game has to […]

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It feels like we’ve been dancing around this maddening question for decades now: What makes MMORPGs so compelling, addicting, and immersive? What is that “special sauce” that’s hooked us for a long time now? There are a few contenders for answers. Perhaps it’s the interaction between a “massively multiplayer” community that gathers in a virtual […]

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Whenever anyone asks me about setting up a (new) forum for MOP, one of the reasons I give for not doing it – and a reason that is still true to this day – is that most MMORPG forums tend to devolve into the same dozen arguments over and over and over and I just […]

I would love to see Hollow Knight: Silksong crossover material in an MMORPG. That’s not the same as saying that I want an MMORPG set in that world; while I wouldn’t say no to that, I don’t think it’s inherently necessary. But a crossover in an online game that lets you dress up in masks and shells […]